Banque Misr deploys banking middleware

Oracle Middle East, today announced that Egypt’s second-largest financial services provider, Banque Misr will utilise the vendor's middleware platform to link up 456 branch offices around the country to provide enhanced services to more than two million customers.

Oracle Middle East today announced that Egypt’s second-largest financial services provider, Banque Misr, will utilise its technology platform to link up to 456 branch offices around the country. According to Oracle, the middleware deployment is the first of its kind in Egypt which is expected to result in faster, easier and more secure transactions for the 84-year old Banque Misr’s two million customers. Currently, Banque Misr has three separate technology platforms for its branches, depending on their geographic location, including an Oracle-based infrastructure at the company’s Islamic banking outlets. The new Oracle project will link all three environments so that customers can transact in real-time at any location across the entire Banque Misr network. “When Banque Misr was founded more than eighty years ago, our clients chose their bank based on its proximity to where they lived and worked. With Egypt’s increasingly mobile society, this Oracle integration project is vital to ensure that customers can transact easily and securely from the location that’s closest to wherever in Egypt they happen to be,” says Abbas Al-Gouhary, Banq Misr’s vice President. The technology at the core of Banque Misr’s initiative is the Oracle9i Application Server Integration module, which enables the actual linkage between the bank’s disparate IT systems. The business advantages that Banque Misr anticipates by integrating its branches, exchange of transactional data and the ability to monitor the bank’s business processes across its hundreds of branches would be more efficient. “Banque Misr has introduced new services including telephone and home banking, and hassle-free money transfer systems, in response to customer demand for greater flexibility and choice. By linking our 456 branches and units, we can serve clients better,” says Maher Hamed, deputy general manager of operations for Banque Misr. “Banque Misr chose to partner with Oracle for this middleware implementation based on our previous positive experience with Oracle’s Egypt operations, as well as the openness and scalability of Oracle’s technology. As we inaugurate more branches both around Egypt and internationally, we need an infrastructure that can scale up,” says Mostafa El-Bourieny, Banque Misr’s General Manager for IT. The bank’s in-house professionals, in conjunction with Oracle partner Tomorrow, Trade and Technology (T3), are managing the new technology initiative. A second phase of the project will be to link Banque Misr’s additional branches throughout the Middle East and Europe via Oracle middleware. “In Egypt’s highly competitive financial services industry, responding to customers’ needs for greater flexibility and security in where and when they transact is an important differentiator,” says Atef Helmy, managing director of Oracle Egypt.